The group tries to quantify the cities where the bike network best connects people to jobs, parks, transit, people, schools and core services. Key word in that sentence is ‘tries’ — see the results for yourself.

In L.A. County, Montebello gets the highest ranking. Nothing against Montebello, but I couldn’t find a bike map on the city’s website and, besides, I think most reasonable folks would rank higher both bike-friendly Long Beach and Santa Monica.

This reminds me of a Government Meeting I attended earlier today in which we got to chatting about data. We all agreed that there’s probably some interesting insights to be found in Big Data but the Debbie Downer in the room — me — pointed to the fact that one needs not Big Data to figure out where to put things like transit. Pro Tip: Generally speaking, aiming toward the big buildings works pretty well.

The same goes for biking. You need not a computer to figure out where it’s nice to ride and where it’s not. #JustSaying

Where some of the nation’s largest transit agencies get their revenue. At Metro, sales taxes from the four ballot measures approved by voters are a big source. In New York, fares figure more prominently, partly because ridership is so heavy in Gotham.

With the Trump Administration advocating more public-private partnerships to fund infrastructure improvements, the NYT looks at some toll road projects. You can guess from the headline what they found.

Does that mean PPPs can’t do some good work? Many people and agencies — including Metro — strongly believe that private funds can be tapped to minimize risk, lower costs and accelerate the construction of projects. Metro is analyzing several proposals, in fact.

Rendering of the proposed building next to a Blue Line train. Credit: Studio One Eleven.

The proposal announced by Mayor Robert Garcia includes 1,000 dorm rooms, meaning a lot more people in transit-friendly DTLB, which sits on the west side of the city. The CSULB is on the east side of town.

The NYT has lately been all over the New York Subway, which has suffered a series of breakdowns and maintenance issues in recent times. This article is about 53-year-old subway cars still in use and, shocker, they break down more often than the system’s newer cars.

Related: the Washington Metro announced Wednesday that it would retire its oldest subway cars by July 1, months ahead of schedule. The D.C. system has also had its share of service issues in recent years.

I remember being in Budapest 15 years ago and taking the subway a couple times. It all looked very old and utilitarian. Based on Laura’s tweet and what I just found with a quick search, it looks like they’ve modernized a good deal since then.